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Google removes host of features from its Assistant
Changes will happen across Google products
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Your support makes all the difference.Google will remove a host of features from its Assistant, the smart tool that can be used with the voice.
The Google Assistant appears across Google’s devices, from its phones to the smart speakers and displays it makes for the home. It has often touted it as one of those devices’ central features, and is used by hundreds of millions of people.
Now, however, it says that it will kill off 17 features that it believes are not being used enough. It claimed the changes would allow it to “focus on quality and reliability — ultimately making it easier to use Assistant across devices”, though the announcement came soon after it said it would lay off about 1,000 employees.
The features being removed were “under-utilised”, it said in announcement. Instead, it would be “prioritising the experiences you love and investing in the underlying technology to make them even better”.
The new features, which are listed on Google’s website, include many tools that are central to the experience of using Google’s devices, It will be longer possible to use your voice to send an audio message, for instance, or to set alarms that turn the radio on in the morning.
The features will be turned off from 26 January, it said. From then, users who ask for them “may get a notification that it won’t be available after a certain date”.
The changes will be coming across Google devices, including mobiles, smartwatches and smart speakers.
Google encouraged users to leave their feedback on their changes through the assistant itself. That can be done by saying “Hey Google, send feedback”.
Google’s tendency to launch new features and then stop supporting them is so prevalent that it has even led to a website known as “Google Graveyard”. That catalogues the hardware, apps and services that have been killed off – which includes 14 of them just last year.
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